Bridgette:
Gordon, J. (2007). What can White faculty do? Teaching in Higher Education
12(3), 337-347.
This article points to possible causes of and solutions to racially unwelcoming
campus practices. This article focuses on a particular university and faculty
responses to racial tension. The author describes and interrogates each situation
from a race conscious perspective to help uncover institutional and individual issues
which could be addressed to help change campus climate.
The article is situated around two faculty responses to racial conflict on campus as a
result of student requests for multicultural campus housing and a series of racial
incidents on campus. Faculty was asked to facilitate classroom discussions to help
students process the incidents. This article describes and interrogates how two
faculty members processed the situation that was occurring on their campus. While
the article centers on the responses of just two faculty members, it expands
commentary to larger campus communities and considers the institutional
responsibility in the creation of campus climates which may support, or minimally
never challenge these types of views. The article explores the role of the institution,
not just the individual in creating healthy racial climates on campus.
This article is helpful in that it provides insight into real racialized situations and
helps us consider how we might unknowingly participate in maintaining racist
campus climates. The article also points to areas for potential examination at our
institution and challenges us to begin our own inquiry to determine the racial
climate of our institution.
Lunden:
Hammer, M. R., Bennett, M. J., Wiseman, R. (2003). Measuring intercultural
sensitivity: The intercultural development inventory. International
Journal of Intercultural Relations (27), 421-443.
This article explores the definition and significance of intercultural sensitivity and
its impact on the development of intercultural competence. Intercultural sensitivity
is described as the ability to understand and experience cultural difference, and
intercultural competence is the ability to behave appropriately when faced with
these differences and experiences. The article discusses a theoretical framework
called the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) that explains
how people understand cultural difference. A person’s position on the DMIS can be
measured using an instrument called the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
By administering and scoring the IDI, the degree to which a person uses an
ethnocentric versus an ethnorelative worldview to engage in interculturally
competent behavior can be determined.
There are six stages of development in the model of intercultural sensitivity
presented by the DMIS. The first three (denial, defense reversal, minimization)
represent an ethnocentric worldview. The second three (acceptance, adaptation,
integration) represent an ethnorelative worldview. People move through the six
stages on the way to the development of intercultural competence. The overarching
concept advanced by this article is that, as a person becomes more sophisticated in
his or her experience of cultural difference, he or she becomes more able to
successfully engage in intercultural relations.
The article begins with an informative narrative introduction that delineates the
above and details the concept of the DMIS. Following this introduction, there is an
extensive research-oriented section in which the methodology and implementation
of the IDI is described in detail, with supporting research data.
This article is useful because it provides a framework for understanding how a
person experiences cultural difference and then gives insight into how more
effective intercultural interactions may be developed from there. The information
presented may be of particular use to those who work with student populations
because it may help to identify students’ positions on the intercultural competence
spectrum with the goal of devising curriculum or classroom experiences that might
foster a more complex intercultural competence for those students. The IDI
described in the article could also be used as an instrument of assessment in the
higher education setting. For example, it could be administered to students at the
beginning of a course, and then again at the end to see how much growth occurred
in a student’s intercultural competence.
Of particular note is that the article explains that “experiencing” a cultural difference
does not necessarily mean having a physical experience—so, for example, a student
who is in a foreign language class might develop a more complex intercultural
sensitivity and competence just by having rich intellectual and emotional
experiences in the classroom, instead of limiting the growth of intercultural
competence to participation in a potentially inaccessible experience such as
studying abroad.
For more information, please see: http://www.idiinventory.com .
Henry Jackson, Jr.
Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood
by Jay MacLeod 2009
In the book Ain’t No Makin’ It Jay MacLeod looks at achievement ideology and
structures that shape the education and job aspirations of two neighborhood
groups, Hallway Hangers (mostly white youth) and Brothers (mostly AfricanAmerican). In addition, he shows how lower class youth accept or reject the
dominant achievement or “American Dream” hypothesis. MacLeod shows how
aspirations is powerful concept in which class inequality is reproduced from one
generation to the next using participant observation. His research takes place in a
low income housing project (p. 3-7).
Hallway Hangers are tough and streetwise, white youth who have formed a
distinctive subculture that dropped out of school, and consistently abused drugs and
alcohol. In addition, committing criminal acts was common familial pattern and
thus, valued being “bad” and devalued “good” qualities (p. 25-27). In direct contrast,
Brothers, although from same area, are mostly black youth who value education and
are not in opposition to the dominant cultural values in American society. They
attend high school on regularly and don’t abuse drugs and alcohol. In addition, they
don’t have arrest records and spend free time in productive, non delinquent
activities (p. 43-47).
MacLeod focuses on theories of social reproduction and how both structures and
culture relate, using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and thus, he explores social
reproduction emphasizing class and how it relates to achievement ideology,
education, work, cultural capital, and race. The achievement ideology is belief that
American Dream is available through education, especially if one works hard
enough and although the Brothers embraced the ideology, they seemed ignorant to
racial barriers and the Hallway Hangers, who stood to benefit the most, rejected the
achievement ideology (p. 98).
The education system was main focus because it stratified students and thus, plays a
key role in the creating, maintaining and legitimizing inequality. The process causes
students to believe failure/success is product of personal reason and thus, social
reproduction is maintained without serious critique of social order by those most
negatively impacted by it.
I think that this book is useful because it intersects race and class to see how school
systems alone have the capacity to overcome the achievement gap. What the author
uncovers is that society is structured in such a way that despite personal ambitions
and aspirations, “no matter how diligently they devote themselves to schools, they
cannot escape the constraints of social class.” Thus, social class seems to be more
important than race when determining success. When it comes to preparing kids for
the future college, which roles (society-structural, parent, school or individual) exert
the most important influences on contributing to youth who fail in school and later
life stages? I also wonder whether or not identifying students success by social class
would reveal similar patterns of inequity in our research and if so, how can we
identify programs that can close the achievement gap and overcome income
inequality?
***
Cynthia:
Rivera-Mosquera, E., Phillips, J. C., Castelino, P., Martin, J. K., & Mowry Dobran,
E. (2007). Design and Implementation of a Grassroots Precollege
Program for Latino Youth. Counseling Psychologist, 35(6), 821-839.
The peer reviewed quantitative research study was conducted to evaluate the
impact the Latinos en Camino al Exito Universitario program had on the participants
confidence and knowledge regarding the college and career process, and academic
skill building components of the program (Rivera-Mosquera, Phillips, Castelina,
Martin, & Mowry Dobran, 2007). The program was developed and implemented by
a group of doctoral interns in the Counseling, Testing, and Career Center
department at the University of Akron and offered to youth that participated at a
local Catholic church (Rivera-Mosquera et al., 2007).
A pretest was administered to 15 students to determine their confidence and
knowledge of the three components of the program; it determined that students
lacked confidence and knowledge in these areas (Rivera-Mosquera et al., 2007). At
the completion of the program participation were provided a posttest; the scores
indicated agreement that participation in the program resulted in increased
confidence and knowledge in the areas of college, career, and academic skills
(Rivera-Mosquera et al., 2007). This study provides insight into aspects of a
precollege program for Latino students that builds confidence and knowledge in the
college and career process, and academic skills. Organizations will benefit from
reviewing this study during the development stage of their program to assist in
determining which aspects of a precollege program are important and beneficial for
Latino students.
Winston:
Wise, Tim J. (2011) White like me: reflections on race from a privileged son. Third
edition. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press.
Activist intellectual Tim Wise challenges fellow Whites to confront the ways in
which they benefit from white skin privilege in this unapologetically outspoken
memoir, revised and expanded from the original 2005 edition. The title of the book
is a play on the 1961 bestselling memoir Black Like Me, written by John Howard
Griffin, a White journalist who artificially darkened his skin and travelled
throughout the Deep South in an effort to experience firsthand the racism of the
segregated U.S. A half-century later, Wise’s principal concern is with demonstrating
that Whites benefit from a host of unearned advantages that are inextricably bound
to institutional and structural racism in the United States.
White Like Me confronts structural racism via anecdotes drawn from Wise’s lived
personal experience. Providing a thunderous elaboration on Peggy McIntosh’s
groundbreaking work on white skin privilege, the book’s ten chapters collectively
assert that when Whites encounter institutions such as banks, courts, police
agencies and schools, the circumstances they experience are often remarkably
different than those experienced by Blacks and Latinos, even in the era of President
Barack Obama. “Though on the surface the election of a man of color to the highest
office in the land might suggest the demise of racism as a persistent social force—
and the subsequent death of white privilege—in truth, it says nothing of the kind,”
Wise asserted. “Individual success and accomplishment says little about larger
institutional truth.”
According to Wise, to confront such institutional truth Whites need to examine
honestly and thoughtfully they ways in which their individual lives are racialized. In
doing so they will be better equipped to acknowledge that certain advantages both
historically and contemporarily have literally come at the expense of people of color.
White Like Me is a useful text for its effort to expose from a personal perspective just
how deeply imbedded white skin privilege is in U.S. society. More to the point,
however, the text should be read by anyone who may be interested in
understanding the limitations inherent in promoting “color-blind” or “race neutral”
institutional cultures and policies.